Auburn University Offers Safety Feature That Allows Friends to Walk Virtually Together

The app allows students to walk with a friend, family member or student virtually until they reach their destination safely.

By Sherelle Black

September 02, 2019

Walking around campus alone at night can be dangerous for students, which is one of the reasons why Auburn University has created an app feature that will help with that.

In the university’s Auburn Safety app, students can virtually walk with a friend both on and off campus. The app works whether the student is walking, driving, biking or using Uber.

Brooke Bailey, AU Campus Safety Communications Specialist, told WSFA that the “friend” does not have to be an Auburn student.

“They can share their location temporarily with the person that they choose and they can do this by using the app. They touch a button that says start friend walk,” Bailey told WSFA. “They then choose the person that they want to share this with. It can be a family member, a friend, a roommate, whoever it is. The person that then receives it will clink a link and it will open up a map and it will show that person’s location as a dot and it will show their destination. As they move that dot moves with their location. Once they get to that final destination, they hit end trip and they’ll be disconnected and their location will no longer be shared.”

The app can be downloaded in the Apple and Google store for free.

About the Author

Sherelle Black is a Content Editor for the Infrastructure Solutions Group at 1105 Media.